District bonuses drew fewer than 200 more applicants than 2013

By Tessa Duvall | tduvall@mrt.com

Published 5:48 pm, Sunday, June 22, 2014

Million of dollars in private donations to Midland ISD have translated to a couple hundred more teacher applications.

When MISD announced on May 6 the availability of $3.25 million for 325 new teacher signing bonuses worth $10,000 over three years, district officials hailed it as a move that would allow the them to recruit and retain more quality classroom teachers, despite the challenges presented by the area’s cost of living.

Between May 6 and June 11, 2,190 applications were submitted to MISD for certified positions — an increase of 191 over the number of applications received during the same time period in 2013, according to records provided by MISD Human Resources.

Superintendent Ryder Warren said he didn’t have a specific number of applicants in mind when the bonuses were announced.

“I always hope for more, but that’s much more — much more — than I feel we would have had if we didn’t have the partnerships with the companies and foundations,” he said.

The “Big 8” — Concho Resources, Pioneer Natural Resources, Apache Corp., Warren Equipment Co., Chevron and the Abell-Hanger, Henry and Scharbauer foundations — collectively donated $6.25 million to the Midland ISD Education Foundation. In addition to the signing bonuses, the remaining $3 million will be used for 1,200 re-signing bonuses worth $2,500 for MISD teachers who stay on for another year.

Warren said the goal of the bonuses was simple: “To just give our principals more choices.”

“Over these last few years, we didn’t have enough (applicants),” he said. “You hear the frustrations from your principals, year after year, that they’re just not getting the applicants in for those vacancies.

“That’s what we tried to attack.”

Who’s applying to MISD?

As of June 11, MISD had received 4,031 applicants for certified positions, with 2,190 coming after May 6, according to documents provided by the district.

Certified positions are mostly teachers, although a few other positions such as instructional coaches and interventionists are included among those applications, Woodrow Bailey, director of professional certification, said.

Comparatively, in 2013 MISD received 3,744 certified applications, with 1,999 of those after May 6, according to MISD records.

The self-reported data is supplemented by the applicant’s resume and does not include years of teaching experience, Bailey said, because it must be verified by the district before anyone is hired.

The data does, however, provide a look at the educational backgrounds and demographic information of new applicants.

Applicants claimed the University of Texas of the Permian Basin, more than any other college, as their undergraduate alma mater, with 401 job-seekers who applied after May 6 having attended the Odessa university. Texas Tech University came in second with 205 applicants, and Angelo State University was third with 148.

In 2013, UTPB was still the top school, with 357 applicants, followed by 212 from Tech and 142 from ASU.

Of this year’s applicants, 460 reported a master’s degree as their highest level of education, up from 417 last year.

According to the data, 1,447 applicants were white and 1,548 are female, compared to 1,418 and 1,290 last year, respectively.

Has hiring improved?

Principals are “amazed” at the number of applicants there are to choose from this year, in addition to the improved quality of those applicants, Warren said.

“In the feedback I’m getting from principals, they’re seeing more quality than they’ve seen in a long time,” he said.

Jeff Horner, who is transitioning from Midland High School principal into his new role as executive director of secondary education, said he’s only got four teachers left to hire, compared to a dozen or more this time in 2013.

“A year ago, I went straight through to August still hiring,” Horner said. “It’s been a huge positive impact bringing folks in.”

Of the 12 to 14 teachers he’s hired so far, only two are brand new to teaching, he said. The two newest teachers both completed a full education program, as opposed to an alternative certification, which typically means a more prepared teacher, he said.

“That’s easily normally a fourth of what I normally go through,” he said of brand new teachers.

Horner also said he’s had great successes in hiring for positions that are typically difficult to fill. It’s hard to find qualified people to fill science jobs, Horner said, but he’s got all but one of those spots filled after a candidate backed out of a position he had previously accepted due to trouble finding a house. Lee High School has filled all of its science positions, he said.

Warren said principals are filling their vacancies earlier in the summer this year.

The MISD board of trustees has approved the hiring of 63 new teachers at its May and June meetings, according to agenda materials, compared to 19 during the same span last year.

Thirteen of the new teachers this year are brand new to education, while 22 have between one and five years of experience.

For the 2012-13 year, 41 percent of MISD teachers had five or fewer years of experience, according to the Texas Education Agency Snapshot. This is the highest number since the TEA Snapshot became available for the 1994-95 school year. That’s also a larger amount than Region 18’s 36.7 percent and Ector County ISD’s 38.7 percent.

An average MISD teacher had 11.1 years of experience for 2012-13, just one-tenth above the district’s low of 11 years in 1995-96, according to the Snapshot. The 2012-13 average for Region 18 was 11.6 years, and ECISD averaged 10.7 years.

Warren said the majority of the new hires will be made official at MISD’s July 28 board meeting.

Where does MISD find its recruits?

The overwhelming majority of MISD’s applicants since May 6 — 1,878, or 85.8 percent, of them — are from the Lone Star State. This is a slight decrease from the 88.5 percent of Texas applicants last year.

MISD’s Human Resources department attended 31 job fairs in March and April, and 19 of them were in Texas, according to a schedule provided by the district.

Warren said he challenged HR to tackle an aggressive recruiting schedule, which left him feeling good about this year’s applicants before May and the signing bonuses.

After Texas, the district’s second-most visited state wasn’t neighboring New Mexico or Oklahoma; it was Michigan.

After finding success at an out-of-state job fair at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, Michigan, HR decided to pursue more opportunities to the far north, said Paul Hooper, director of certified personnel. Michigan first became a recruiting target after HR officials learned that there was a surplus of teachers there, Hooper said.

Taking a chance in Michigan has paid off moreso than recruiting in some neighboring states, he said.

“We’ve always recruited in Oklahoma, and part of our issue with Oklahoma is we don’t get a lot from Oklahoma because they have to cross the Metroplex to get all the way to Midland,” he said. “They’re more familiar with the area and therefore they’re not going to come all the way to Midland. But people in Michigan don’t know as much about Texas.

“They’re open and willing and risk-takers, and they’re willing to take on that big leap to come all the way to Midland.”

Hooper said the applicants from Michigan have been “outstanding.”

“I cannot begin to tell you how quality the applicants are,” he said. “I’m very impressed with the preparatory program in Michigan. What I do, I don’t only attend the job fairs, I get to spend the day interviewing people. I am highly impressed with their knowledge, and their depth of knowledge. We’re really getting some really good applicants in those people from Michigan.”

All of the job fairs MISD attended were before the May 6 signing bonus announcement. Hooper said HR department staff members followed up with potential applicants they had connected with at job fairs to inform them of the bonus.

Warren said diversifying the applicant pool was an important goal of the signing bonuses.

However, the top five undergraduate schools most frequently attended by applicants are all in West Texas: UTPB, Tech, ASU, Sul Ross State University and the University of Texas at El Paso. UTPB, Sul Ross, Tech and ASU are also the most commonly cited graduate schools.

“I really wanted to pull in the Metroplex, Austin,” Warren said. “It’s just, right now we’re living in an area where may not be the first place people think to live if they’re not from this area, don’t have family in this area or they’re not associated with the oilfield right now.”

Hooper said quality, more than geography, is what’s important.

“We’re just looking for the very best, qualified applicants, wherever they come from, whether they come from Midland, Oklahoma State or Michigan State,” he said. “We’re just going to look for the best possible applicants for our principals to chose from, and that’s the bottom line.”

Did the bonuses work?

Horner said he thinks from all the signs he’s seen so far that the bonuses are serving their intended purpose.

“The business owners who have provided that incentive ... the increase is directly related, directly correlated to their support of the district and getting new teachers in,” he said.

The success of the signing bonuses won’t be measured by the number of applicants or their alma maters alone, Warren said.

“We’ll start looking at these new folks coming in and say, ‘Are they as dynamic as what we think they are?’” he said.

Teacher successes will be measured both quantitatively — such as by student test scores, and qualitatively — including the atmosphere on school campuses and the “kid-friendly” and “parent-friendly” factors, Warren said.

The “Big 8” donors will receive progress reports from the district, he said.

“We’ll sit down as a group and I will give presentations, and I will give them an end-of-the summer presentation: This is what we think happened, this is what we think resulted from your generosity,” he said. “Then I will give them consistent, ongoing updates throughout the school year to show them, ‘You know what? This worked.’

“Hopefully, I’m not going to tell them, ‘Nope, sorry, this didn't work.’ Hopefully, I’m going to be able to show them the metrics they need to go back to their organization and say, ‘We’ve done this and it’s helped.’”

This time next year, MISD officials may have their answer.

“This all boils down to: I hope this works,” Warren said. “I really do hope when we cycle through these new applicants, the new teachers who are going to be in there, we have a stronger program.”